Centro de astrobiología asociado al NASA Astrobiology Institute

Actualidad | Noticias

A study, led by the CAB, concludes that the first rains recorded in centuries in the heart of Atacama have devastated their microbial community, something key to the study of a hypothetical primordial microbial life on Mars.

A research team led by Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA) has found an empirical relation that could allow unification of the different scales of star formation, from small scale individual stars in our neighborhood, to large scale whole galaxies at long distances.

Since the end of May, a global dust storm on Mars has affected the entire planet, including Gale crater where NASA’s Curiosity rover is located. Onboard is the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), developed at the spanish Centro de Astrobiología (CISC-INTA), which continues to send data on the environmental conditions of the planet during the storm.

The release of methane trapped in Martian subsurface reservoirs following planetary obliquity shifts may have contributed to episodic climate warming between 3.6 and 3 billion years ago, explaining for ancient ice-covered lakes.

Slope streaks have been frequently observed in the equatorial, low thermal inertia and dusty regions of Mars. The reason behind their formation remains unclear with proposed hypotheses for both dry and wet mechanisms.

We report the results from a pilot search for radio recombination line (RRL) emission at millimeter wavelengths in a small sample of pre-Planetary Nebulae (pPNe) and young PNe (yPNe) with emerging central ionized regions.

INTA (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, National Institute for Aerospace Technology) offers up to 6 Ramón y Cajal (RyC) Research Contracts for the 2016 Call in the field of Astrobiology and other areas. We need scientists with experience in topics such as Planetary Geology, Planetary Atmospheres and Climatology (Mars and Europe, mainly), Prebiotic Chemistry, Spectroscopic Techniques (Raman, IR) applied to the search for biomarkers, Electronics and Space Optics, Microbial Systems’ Biology and Bioinformatics, Fluidics and Microfluidics, Simulation of Planetary Environments, etc.

An article about the origin of river erosion channels on Mars entitled "Martian outflow channels: How did their source aquifers form, and why did they drain so rapidly?" was published in Scientific Reports section of the journal Nature. Alberto González Fairén, a researcher in the Department of Planetology and Habitability of the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA), is part of the international team that conducted the study.

Jorge Lillo Box defended Box in the 201 Classroom at the Module 15 of the Autonomous University of Madrid (Faculty of Science) his thesis entitled "Planetary systems across different niches: Syniergies Between Kepler and Calar Alto observatories" directed by David Barrado Navascues obtaining the higest qualification

An international team publishes a paper that researches the activity cycles of a star similar to the young Sun. The study will help to understand whether the activity solar cycles could influence the development of life on Earth. The results of this research are published in the edition of May 6th in the magazine Astronomy & Astrophysics.